The Musings Of Jeff Chandler

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Solve Your Web2pt0 Identity Crisis With Onxiam

Creating accounts on new Web 2.0 sites is the easy part as most sites only require an email address and a username however, managing all of those accounts can be tough.

Onxiam pronounced (ON-X-I-AM), a Web 2.0 service aimed at consolidating all of your online identities into one simple page makes managing all of those accounts a breeze by allowing you to promote a single identity which provides links to all of your other online identities. Simply put, this service places your online presence onto one page so that instead of telling friends and family where you are and what your username is on a particular website, you simply send them one link which provides all of the information they need such as your username on a particular service.

As I joined more and more online communities, I found myself constantly saying to people “On [website] I am [name].” This was getting tiresome, and I thought that there just had to be a better way of promoting myself to my friends, my family and to the online world as a whole.

I looked around but didn’t find anything, so I decided to build it myself. “Kevin Poulsen”

The Account Process:

Setting up a new account is fairly straight forward. As with most Web 2.0 sites you need to provide an email address, username and a password. Once the supplied information is provided you will automatically be logged into the site and will be presented with a page that provides a complimentary greeting. From this page, you can add what Onxiam calls IDENTITIES to your account.

The Social Aspect:

Although Onxiam fails to provide a way for registered users to communicate with each other through the service itself, knowing your friends identities on various services such as AIM or SKYPE allows you to get in contact with those individuals, indirectly because of Onxiam. If you perform a search and discover that one of your friends is not listed as being a registered member, be sure to send them an email invitation through the Onxiam invite service. The invitation will contain some generic text stating that you would like that person to join the service. Registered users can also add websites that are not already listed in the site directory. Once a site is added, it is instantly available for other users to use however, items such as icons and the ability to link directly to user profile pages does take some time to be added to the site.

Identity Crisis:

One thing to keep in mind while creating your identities is that you do have the option of making them PRIVATE which is great considering you may not want people following you around the net EVERYWHERE you go. From your Onxiam home page, click on the ADD link which is underneath the text MY INDENTITIES. The drop-down list contains what seems like a never ending list of all of the different sites and services currently in the Onxiam database. Once you select the site your apart of, type in your username for that site into the box on the right hand side. If you want this entry to be private, be sure to uncheck the box labeled PUBLIC. If you fail to uncheck this box, the account information will be listed in your public profile. Once you have that information typed in, press the ADD button. Your identity for that specific website will now be listed on your Onxiam home page.

My Opinion

This service is incredibly easy to use and although some new competition in this consolidating space has recently arrived (findmeon.com) Onxiam provides a simple, clear way of putting your entire online presence onto one page. So far, I have yet to come across a service that makes this process any easier.

One of the disconcerting things about this service is that the development blog has gone silent. The last post published on the dev blog dates back to October 31, 2006. Although Keven has built a service that in many ways can run on it’s own, it would be nice to see a fairly updated development blog to prevent users from creating a mentality that the service is dead. Another surprising fact is that the service is still free to use and is void of advertising. I’m not sure how much of being ad free will play into Onxiam’s future but it is refreshing to see a simple service that is not plastered with ads.

Conclusion

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Adam Jackson from http://www.adamjacksonlive.com for pointing me to this site. In a recent DailyTechTalk Talkcast I asked Adam if there were any Web 2.0 site/service consolidation services out there and this is the one he pointed me to. Good choice Adam.

On my quest to join all of the Web 2.0 sites and services on the net, Onxiam is like a godsend to me. I think of it as being everywhere on the net from one place. Be sure to bookmark http://www.onxiam.com/people/Jeffro2pt0/ if you have the chance to keep tabs on me. If you have an even better solution be sure to post it in the comments.